he language spoken
at Thessalonika was the Servian: but from the immense number of purely
Greek words which occur in the translation, as well as from the fact of
the version being a strictly literal one, it is probable that the
Scriptures were not translated into any specific spoken dialect at all;
but that a kind of _mezzo-termine_ was selected--or rather formed--for
the purpose. What we have advanced derives a still stronger degree of
probability from the circumstance, that the Slavonic Bible follows the
Greek _construction_. This Bible, with slight changes and corrections
produced by three or four revisions made at different periods, is that
still employed by the Russian Church; and the present spoken language of
the country differs so widely from it, that the Slavonian of the Bible
forms a separate branch of education to the priests and to the upper
classes--who are instructed in this _dead_ language, precisely as an
Italian must study Latin in order to read the Bible.

Above the sterile and uninteresting desert of early Russian history,
towers, like the gigantic Sphynx of Ghizeh over the sand of the Thebaid,
one colossal figure--that of Vladimir Sviatoslavitch; the first to
surmount the bloody splendour of the Great Prince's bonnet[6] with the
mildly-radiant Cross of Christ.

[6] The crown was not worn by the ancient Russian sovereigns,
or "Grand Princes," as they were called; the insignia of these
potentates was a close skull-cap, called in Russian shapka,
bonnet; many of which are preserved in the regalia of Moscow.
This bonnet is generally surrounded by the most precious furs,
and gorgeously decorated with gems.

From the conversion to Christianity of Vladimir and his
subjects--passing over the wild and rapacious dominion of the Tartar
hordes, which lasted for about 250 years--we may consider two languages,
essentially distinct, to have been employed in Russia till the end of
the 17th century--the one the written or learned, the other the spoken
language.

The former was the Slavonian into which the Holy Scriptures were
translated: and this remained the learned or official language for a
long period. In this--or in an imitation of this, effected with various
degrees of success--were compiled the different collections of Monkish
annals which form the treasury whence future historians were to select
their materials from among the valuable, but confused accumulations of
facts; in